June Video

Olivia's passage news!

Written by Olivia during our passage (during stop over in Virginia Beach waiting for the weather) – June 26, 2012  (sorry so tardy in posting).

We saw dolphins.  It was cool.  I was happy.  I saw flying fish.  I have never seen them before.  It was awesome.  I learned how to drive the boat.  Now when I go to camp with Maggie and Kate, we can sail our own boat.  I have 5 best friends, only one goes to my camp.  I am excited that we get to see Charlotte in Rhode Island. We are going to stay there for 2 days.  We are running out of food. We are going to the store today.  The dingy stopped its motor. We had to paddle back. We got past the storm.  I am happy because we are going to the beach today. 

Photo shoot with Maggie

Our first day on passage - takes some getting used too

Dolphins!!

When it rains

How does that saying go?  “When it rains, it pours”.  That’s a little how we are feeling right now.  Need I remind you that Craig is studying for his 10-year board re-certification test that he is taking in 2 weeks.  He is definitely in cram mode.

We knew enough to expect the unexpected, but this is getting down right ridiculous!  As you know, we started our trip with a bang, literally, when the outhaul snapped at 2 in the morning on our first night on passage.  Then the autopilot abandoned us the same night.  Okay, not to worry, there were 3 of us to hand steer 800 miles to New England.  We had the autopilot rebuilt in Tiverton RI and it looks brand new and even better, it works!  

When Craig “unpickled” the water maker on our passage, it didn’t work.  Bummer…. we’ll need to conserve.  Once in RI, he worked on it for a couple of days and couldn’t get the (great tasting) water into our tanks.  After calling the manufacturer out to the boat to make a house call (cha ching), we were told we needed a new solenoid for the valve.  Great, the water maker is fixed and working.  Relieved, Craig gets some study time in.

Not a day later, the port engine starts to smoke every time we start the engine.  Each day the white smoke coming out the side of the boat gets thicker and lasts longer.  Craig abandons his studies to dive into the engine compartment.  We can’t have the engine failing.  Fricka Fracka is all I heard coming from under the hood and a lot of scratching of his bald head.  A phone conversation with his stepdad (mechanic extraordinaire), they decided it was air in the line and not to worry.  Low and behold, today when we started the engine, hardly any smoke.  So maybe it just needed to get that out of its system.  Let’s hope so.

But wait, there’s more.  Before the stepdad consultation, Craig was into the starboard engine running the fuel cleaner and discovered black oil all over the sail drive seals.  This is good and bad.  It’s good because he knew it wasn’t oil from the sail drives themselves (phew), the oil was leaking from the engine somewhere.  “Crap, Honeeeyyyyyyyy”.  To make a long story short, we still don’t know where the leak is, but Craig has his suspicion and he is watching it.  Craig gets in a little study time after the girls go to bed.

Oh, don’t think this story ends here….Craig wakes up the next morning and wants some coffee.  This is a daily event on our boat.  But there is no water and the pump just keeps running.  I wake up to this strange noise and ask what’s up?  Craig informs me that we have no water.  I thought to myself “okay, you don’t need to over exaggerate!”.  But he was right, as I saw for myself when he switched on the instruments and our water meter read (dah dah dah dah) EMPTY!  What, how could that happen?  Craig whispers (cuz the girls are still sleeping at this early hour) some profanity that I won’t repeat here.  But it had to do with the engine, the water maker, the autopilot and now the water tank AND he is supposed to be studying.  How do I expect him to get any studying in if he has to fix the #@$& boat all the time.  We can’t possibly get by with no engine and no water.  How could we possibly lose 50 gallons of water and not know it!  We conclude that it’s the water maker somehow syphoning the water out a thru hull into the ocean.  Okay, we’ll call the guy again (cha ching) and see what he thinks.  In the meantime, no studying got done.  We had to get to a dock and get water.  We may as well get fuel and pump out too.  We are in Newport after all, the land of deep pockets and lots of choices.  We mosey over to a fuel dock and call ahead – “no, sorry sir, we are waiting for a 143 foot mega yacht to dock for the night, we won’t have room for you”.  Okay, no problem, we’ll go somewhere else.  We mosey to the next place, call ahead – “sure, no problem”.  We get over there and just as we are about to swing into the wind and pull up, a fishing boat swoops in and takes our spot.  Fricka Fracka.  This day is for the dogs.  It will go down in history as the worst day ever (we hope).  Oh and one more thing, our fuel cap (that hangs on a leash) broke and fell into the water as Craig pulled the fuel nozzle out.  GREAT! 

We motored back to the anchorage with our tail between our legs feeling very sorry for ourselves.  And, Craig didn’t get any studying done!

I am sorry to say that there is one more little part to this story.  We woke up this morning and had lost another 50 gallons of water overnight (promptly after we put 100 gallons in).  This time the water maker was turned off!  What the hell!  We tear the boat apart (literally) looking for any sign of water or leaks or ANYTHING.  Finally, we (when I say we, I mean Olivia & Maggie) discover that the shower on our starboard swim platform is on ever so slightly.  Ah-Haaa, maybe that’s it!  We turn the water maker back on, make some water and so far, we are holding steady.  We’ll let you know if we have water in the morning.

AKA a "Boat Buck" - you boat owners can relate!!

Trying to figure out the issue (that's under our bed by the way)

Ocean State, Tall Ships & Ft Adams

It is amazing what you learn at the Laundromat!  The girls and I carried our 2 bags of dirty laundry, soap and bounce sheets 4 blocks to Micki’s Laundromat.  While we were waiting for our clothes to tumble dry, I picked up a local penny saver.  I especially enjoyed the “did you know?” highlights throughout.  I learned that Rhode Island has more than 100 beaches and it’s shoreline runs for 400 miles.  That’s why it’s called the Ocean State.

This past weekend a dozen tall ships from around the world were here in Newport Harbor for the Tall Ship Festival.  They were docked along the waterfront for tours aboard.  As we strolled along the numerous restaurants and boutiques along one of the many wharfs, we saw a sign that read “crew wanted” on one of the tall ships.  We asked the girls who wanted to go the South Pacific as crew and Maggie said “what?, where??”  Kate and Olivia enthusiastically said yes and then promptly asked, “What’s that?”  We got a good chuckle out of that one.  On the way back to our boat, Olivia says, “I really want to work on that boat!”

Craig took the girls to see the tall ships, climb aboard and be a part of history.  They went aboard HMS Bounty, which was used in the Pirates of the Caribbean 2 movie.  So cool!!   There was even someone dressed up like Jack Sparrow.

 On Monday, the ships all set sail on a parade around the Narragansett Bay.  We took a seat in front of Ft. Adams overlooking the water.  

Hangin' out on the stone wall waiting for the ships

Newport Bridge and a plethora of boats and tall ships

HMS Bounty under sail

Many other beautiful boats not under sail

 After the parade sailed us by, we took a guided tour of Ft. Adams.  It was obvious that our guide was very passionate about history.  We had a fact filled tour of the fort built in 1857 for a sea invasion that never came.

Inside the fort - 4 acres 

captured from inside the fort through the stone wall gate

Video works - I think

Go back to the "Video Premiere Take 4" post and view the video.  Thanks for all the feedback.  I changed the settings and had to choose a song from the you tube library (the original song Maggie picked was Good Day Sunshine).  If it works, we'll take it!

Ft Adams by Kate

Hi it’s Kate again. I just wanted to write about Fort Adams. Well, it started out just being a normal day on Sunday July 8^th, well almost as normal as a day could get. On that Sunday morning we were going to go to the Tall Ships Parade. We sat down on the flat red rocks, and we saw the ships come out of the harbor to where their starting point was. We waited and waited and they still did not come around in parade form. We played 20 guesses, and we started getting a little too silly for my mom and dad to handle, so we decided to take a walk. We wandered around a while and soon discovered we were starving. We bought 5 hotdogs and sat down to eat. But Before that we had purchased tickets to go see a fort, that fort was Fort Adams. Before I had taken even one bite of my hotdog, my dad said that it was time to go, I scarfed down my hotdog and ran to the gift shop (The start of the tour). When we started the tour, our tour guide introduced himself, and told us a little history of Rhode Island before we began. We got to go into the main officers quarters, we also got to go in the powder chamber which is where they stored all the gun powder (They didn’t have any medal in that room so there wouldn’t be any sparks), we got to go where they put the cannons, and we got to take flashlights into an underground tunnel (the soldiers way of fast communication). That part was the most fun out of all of it. The tour was over before I knew it, and I was so sad. We had to go back to the boat after that and that was the end of the almost perfect day.

Some facts that I learned about Fort Adams:

·      Fort Adams is the biggest fort in all of America.

·      You can fit 3 large forts inside it.

·      They had lots of sources of entertainment at the fort such as a bowling ally, a shooting range, and a movie theater.

·      In the powder chamber, the gunpowder was stacked from ground level to ceiling top.

·      The East Gate was the main entrance.

·      There is dirt on the fort roof so cannonballs wouldn’t crack the fort.

·      The listening Tunnels were used to allow defenders to listen for and destroy enemy tunneling operations.

·      The listening tunnels were 5ft. and got to the point where they were 4 ft. 6”.

Huge flag hanging on the fort wall

Kid Fact:  "On board US Navy sailing warships in the early 1800's it was common to find boys aged 8-14 serving as powder monkeys, cooks assistants, and even midshipmen!"

HMS Bounty

Newport, Rhode Island

While Bristol is a quiet and charming waterfront town that is linked to the sea with rich nautical history, Newport is considered (by most) the yachting capitol of the US.  It hosts more yachting events than any other town.  We thought there were a lot of boats in Bristol for the 4^th of July.  There are more here; hundreds (no fudging here) on moorings, anchored or docked.  It is impressive to see and crazy to navigate around. 

We arrived in Newport Harbor yesterday afternoon, just as it started to rain.  It didn’t rain hard or very long but it did bring some relief to the humid stillness.  After which the sea breeze returned to blow the clouds away.  It is invigorating when the sun goes down the temperature does too.

We weaved our way through the anchorage to find a suitable spot to drop the hook.  The boats were all so close together, it was quite intimidating.  I guess we didn’t have to worry about anyone complaining we were anchored too close, since everyone was really close and cozy (anchor etiquette rule #1).

We went ashore to the waterfront in search of some fresh fish for dinner.  We, of course, are not familiar with Newport at all, so it was a little like the blind leading the blind.  We followed other dinghy’s thinking they knew where they were going until we found the pier we were after.   The sign on the piling said dinghies had to tie up in the ‘yellow painted’ area at the end of the dock.  Well, that’s just great, it was full, way past the yellow line mind you.  Craig and I fretted about what to do.  Do we push our way through the dinghies to be “legal” and risk pissing off another dinghy owner?  Or, do we just tie up and hope they don’t impound our dinghy?  We debated for way too long and decided to tie up outside the yellow line.  Gasp!  Can you tell that Craig and I are rule followers??  The dinghy owner next to us had come and gone once and when he came back a second time said “you still on the dock?!”  Oh, how embarrassing.  We are so green; it’s so not funny.  Craig admired the people that zipped in at near full speed, stopped on a dime, tied up, got off and were on their merry way in a flash.  Hopefully we will be that cool at the end of this year.  We can only hope right!

Our last day in Bristol was spent with Dan's extended family on our boat!  

Boyer girls with Caroline (niece)

Katie (and brother Steven) climbed the mast 

Kate's favorite spot on the boat while underway (how can she read???  She must get it from Craig; certainly not me!)

The girls inspired an entire flock of geese coming from all over the marina with cheerios

When the sun goes down in Newport, there is a canon shot (every night) in honor of the "sunset salute"

Surprise...more fireworks!  Yeah for us, another front row seat

Fireworks with Newport Bridge on the right

Mmmmm, look at that lobster (we almost bought).  We got flounder instead.